20. MY DELIVERER

ONE DAY, in the early autumn, as the “Gila”
touched at Ehrenberg, on her way down river, Captain
Mellon called Jack on to the boat, and, pointing
to a young woman, who was about to go ashore, said:
‘‘“Now, there's a girl I think will do for your wife.
She imagines she has bronchial troubles, and some
doctor has ordered her to Tucson. She comes from up
North somewhere. Her money has given out, and
she thinks I am going to leave her here. Of course,
you know I would not do that; I can take her on down
to Yuma, but I thought your wife might like to
have her, so I've told her she could not travel on this
boat any farther without she could pay her fare.
Speak to her: she looks to me like a nice sort of a
girl.”’’

In the meantime, the young woman had gone ashore
and was sitting upon her trunk' gazing hopelessly
about. Jack approached, offered her a home and
good wages, and brought her to me.

I could have hugged her for very joy, but I restrained
myself and advised her to stay with us for
awhile, saying the Ehrenberg climate was quite as
good as that of Tucson.

She remarked quietly: ‘‘“You do not look as if it
agreed with you very well, ma'am.”’’

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Then I told her of my young child, and my hard
journeys, and she decided to stay until she could earn
enough to reach Tucson.

And so Ellen became a member of our Ehrenberg
family. She was a fine, strong girl, and a very good
cook, and seemed to be in perfect health. She said,
however, that she had had an obstinate cough which
nothing would reach, and that was why she came to
Arizona. From that time, things went more smoothly.
Some yeast was procured from the Mexican bake-shop,
and Ellen baked bread and other things, which seemed
like the greatest luxuries to us. We sent the soldier
back to his company at Fort Yuma, and began to live
with a degree of comfort.

I looked at Ellen as my deliverer, and regarded her
coming as a special providence, the kind I had heard
about all my life in New England, but had never
much believed in.

After a few weeks, Ellen was one evening seized
with a dreadful toothache, which grew so severe that
she declared she could not endure it another hour:
she must have the tooth out. ‘‘“Was there a dentist in
the place?”’’

I looked at Jack: he looked at me: Ellen groaned
with pain.

‘‘“Why, yes! of course there is,”’’ said this man for
emergencies; ‘‘“Fisher takes out teeth, he told me so
the other day.”’’

Now I did not believe that Fisher knew any more

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about extracting teeth than I did myself, but I
breathed a prayer to the Recording Angel, and said
naught.

‘‘“I'll go get Fisher,”’’ said Jack.

Now Fisher was the steamboat agent. He stood
six feet in his stockings, had a powerful physique
and a determined eye. Men in those countries had
to be determined; for if they once lost their nerve,
Heaven save them. Fisher had handsome black eyes.

When they came in, I said: ‘‘“Can you attend to
this business, Mr. Fisher?”’’

‘‘“I think so,”’’ he replied, quietly. ‘‘“The Quartermaster
says he has some forceps.”’’

I gasped. Jack, who had left the room, now appeared,
a box of instruments in his hand, his eyes
shining with joy and triumph.

Fisher took the box, and scanned it. ‘‘“I guess
they'll do,”’’ said he.

So we placed Ellen in a chair, a stiff barrack chair,
with a raw-hide seat, and no arms.

It was evening.

‘‘“Mattie, you must hold the candle,”’’ said Jack.
‘‘“I'll hold Ellen, and, Fisher, you pull the tooth.”’’

So I lighted the candle, and held it, while Ellen
tried, by its flickering light, to show Fisher the tooth
that ached.

Fisher looked again at the box of instruments.
‘‘“Why,”’’ said he, ‘‘“these are lower jaw rollers, the

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kind used a hundred years ago; and her tooth is an
upper jaw.”’’

‘‘“Never mind,”’’ answered the Lieutenant, ‘‘“the instruments
are all right. Fisher, you can get the tooth
out, that's all you want, isn't it?”’’

The Lieutenant was impatient; and besides he did
not wish any slur cast upon his precious instruments.

So Fisher took up the forceps, and clattered around
amongst Ellen's sound white teeth. His hand shook,
great beads of perspiration gathered on his face, and
I perceived a very strong odor of Cocomonga wine.
He had evidently braced for the occasion.

It was, however, too late to protest. He fastened
onto a molar, and with the lion's strength which lay
in his gigantic frame, he wrenched it out.

Ellen put up her hand and felt the place. ‘‘“My
God! you've pulled the wrong tooth!”’’ cried she, and
so he had.

I seized a jug of red wine which stood near by, and
poured out a gobletful, which she drank. The blood
came freely from her mouth, and I feared something
dreadful had happened.

Fisher declared she had shown him the wrong
tooth, and was perfectly willing to try again. I could
not witness the second attempt, so I put the candle
down and fled.

The stout-hearted and confiding girl allowed the
second trial, and between the steamboat agent, the

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Lieutenant, and the red wine, the ailing molar was
finally extracted.

This was a serious and painful occurrence. It did
not cause any of us to laugh, at the time. I am sure
that Ellen, at least, never saw the comical side of it.

When it was all over, I thanked Fisher, and Jack
beamed upon me with: ‘‘“You see, Mattie, my case of
instruments did come in handy, after all.”’’

Encouraged by success, he applied for a pannier of
medicines, and the Ehrenberg citizens soon regarded
him as a healer. At a certain hour in the morning,
the sick ones came to his office, and he dispensed
simple drugs to them and was enabled to do much
good. He seemed to have a sort of intuitive knowledge
about medicines and performed some miraculous
cures, but acquired little of no facility in the use of
the language.

I was often called in as interpreter, and with the
help of the sign language, and the little I knew of
Spanish, we managed to get an idea of the ailments of
these poor people.

And so our life flowed on in that desolate spot, by
the banks of the Great Colorado.

I rarely went outside the enclosure, except for my
bath in the river at daylight, or for some urgent
matter. The one street along the river was hot and
sandy and neglected. One had not only to wade
through the sand, but to step over the dried heads
or horns or bones of animals left there to whiten

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where they died, of thrown out, possibly, when some
one killed a sheep of beef. Nothing decayed there,
but dried and baked hard in that wonderful air and
sun.

Then, the groups of Indians, squaws and half-breeds
loafing around the village and the store! One
never felt sure what one was to meet, and although
by this time I tolerated about everything that I had
been taught to think wicked or immoral, still, in
Ehrenberg, the limit was reached, in the sights I
saw on the village streets, too bold and too rude to be
described in these pages.

The few white men there led respectable lives
enough for that country. The standard was not high,
and when I thought of the dreary years they had
already spent there without their families, and the
years they must look forward to remaining there, I
was willing to reserve my judgment.